The commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces is optimistic about the new "heavy" liquid- fuel ICBM that is currently in development. He expects the work on the missile to be completed in 2018, so the Rocket Forces could receive the first missiles in 2019.

This plan is probably unrealistic - development of the missile will be done more or less from scratch, but the project is definitely going forward.

Share

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://russianforces.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1393

References to this entry

Russia expects that the new "heavy" ICBM will be ready for deployment in 2018-2020, according to Sergei Karakayev, the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces. This is the liquid-fuel ICBM that Russia is developing to deploy in silos. The 2018-2020...

Comments

Pavel

On December 14th, Gen. Sergei Karakayev announced that Russia was developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile, as quoted by AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE. The system was tested back on October 24, 2012 at the Kapustin Yar test range and hit a mock target at the Sary-Shagan firing rage in neighboring Kazakhstan. He was quoted by RIA Novosti, “The solid fuel missile will allow us to realize possibilities like the creation of a high-precision strategic missile with a non-nuclear warhead with practically global range,” Karakayev was also quoted as saying that “the new 100-ton missile would be able to overcome any existing missile defense system” and “this new system would eventually replace the Yars and Topol-M ICBM in due course”.

Is this news accurate? Is this the Avangrad ICBM? If the new solid fueled missile is 100 tons, how large a system would you think the new “heavy” liquid fueled missile to be?

Avangard was the one tested three time and mulled as a possible carrier for PGS a la Russe. The 100-ton large missile is still apparently in design stage.

By the way, was reading START I annexes a while back and it turns out that the 106 ton cut off for what was classified as a "heavy ICBM" was used in order to grandfather SS-19, which weighed 105.6 tons. That's where this whole 100-ton missile talk is coming from.

I remember the SS-24 being both silo and rail launched but not TEL road-mobile. Not an engineer; but, would think going from 80 to 100 tons would be significant. (?) However, I agree completely on your MIT conclusion. If this missile is going to eventually replace the Topol Ms and Yars’, there will be a mobile capability.

That leaves the question: are there any silo-launchers for Topol-M familay missile at Plesetzk or Kasputin-Yar to test the silo-versions? How was Topol-M tested first before the mobile version was introduced?

I saw Pavel’s reference to the TEL launch of the Avangard test missile. However, even the term “TEL Launch” in the media isn’t always accurate; or, at least, isn’t accurate to my definition of a TEL launch. To me, such a road mobile system is like the SS-25; a true transporter erector launcher vehicle with an integrated prime mover that can carry, elevate to firing position and launch a ballistic missile. In fact, the recent North Korean launch of the ballistic missile/space launcher was quoted in the press as TEL launched. Clearly, the DPRK missile was launched from a hard-pad, facilitated by an integrated erector, or support tower, as broadcasted on television.

I researched the road mobile TEL version of the SS-24 and saw several mockups of the vehicles but no actual system. Do we know if the SS-24 was actually tested with such?

Not questioning that Avangard will be road mobile in the least. Just looking for details.

Frank:
There is a document in German, probably not the most accurate one. But if you scroll down to RT-23M, which is stated to be a follow up system of the RT-23UTTH, there is an image showing a test launch from a TEL. The picture is not the best though. The truck should be a MAZ-7906.
www.dtig.org/docs/GUS_ICBM.pdf

My question with these new ICBM systems is what will the warheads be? Are there new warhead designs or is the current 550 kt warhead developed for the TOPOL the only design that will be used from now on? What about higher yield warhead options? What is Russia's plan for warhead development?